Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh: The Complete Walking Guide (2026)

The easy way, from Dunsapie Loch

If you want the summit without the full circuit, get to the small car park at Dunsapie Loch on the east side of the park, on Queen's Drive. From there it's a steady 15-20 minute climb up open grass on the hill's gentler eastern flank, with a short rocky scramble for the final few metres to the trig point. It's the shortest route to the top by some distance, which makes it the one to pick if you're short on time, travelling with kids, or aiming for sunrise without an hour-long walk in the dark beforehand.

The popular way, from Holyrood Palace

Most first-timers start at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, at the bottom end of the Royal Mile, and follow the main path north past St Margaret's Loch and the ruins of St Anthony's Chapel before climbing the steeper western side. Reckon on 30-45 minutes to the summit at a normal pace, and 90 minutes to two hours if you loop back past Salisbury Crags on the way down. It's the busiest route by far, especially late morning and at weekends, because it's the one every tour map and city guide points you towards.

Why people bother

Whichever route you take, the reward is the same: a full 360-degree view that takes in the Castle, the Old and New Towns, the Firth of Forth, Fife and the Pentland Hills on a clear day. The single best reason to set an early alarm is what that view looks like at that hour: the light comes in low and gold across the Forth, long before the mid-morning crowds arrive.

Salisbury Crags, and the honest Radical Road status

Salisbury Crags are the sheer basalt cliffs running along the park's western edge, and the view from their base is arguably better than the one from the summit, because you're looking straight down over Princes Street rather than across at the Old Town. The catch: the Radical Road, the footpath that runs along the base of the crags, has been closed since 2018 after a rockfall dropped roughly 50 tonnes of rock onto the path. Historic Environment Scotland floated reopening a section between the Hawse and the South Quarry from June 2026, but its own current Holyrood Park guidance still lists the Radical Road as closed, so don't build a route around it without checking historicenvironment.scot first. Technical rock climbing on the crags themselves has also been banned since 2019. For now, they're best seen from Queen's Drive at their base, or looking across from the Arthur's Seat side.

St Margaret's Loch

The first landmark on the popular route, a couple of minutes' walk from the Palace gates: a small loch that's usually busy with swans and other waterfowl, and the flattest, most paved stretch of the whole park, good for a short stroll if you don't want to climb anything at all. It's also a sensible spot for a breather on the way back down, with benches right at the water's edge.

St Anthony's Chapel

A short, steep detour off the main Holyrood Palace route, the ruins sit on a rocky outcrop above St Margaret's Loch, roughly 10-15 minutes into the walk up. Only a fragment of one wall still stands today, and there's genuine uncertainty over exactly when it was built or by whom, but the outcrop it sits on earns the detour on its own: it's the first proper high vantage point on the climb, with a clear view back over the Palace and the New Town before the path gets steeper.

Dunsapie Loch: the easy-route trailhead

This small loch sits right beside the Dunsapie Loch car park on Queen's Drive, which is what makes the eastern route up Arthur's Seat the quick one. The car park is small and fills up on weekends and in good weather, so if you're driving, get there early or have a backup plan; Historic Environment Scotland currently has the park's High Road closed to motor traffic too, so check current road access before you set off. On foot, it's roughly a 20-25 minute walk in from the Palace end of the park via Queen's Drive.

Duddingston Loch: the quiet side

On the park's south side, below Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags rather than beside them, Duddingston Loch is a quiet bird sanctuary and a genuinely different experience from the busy Palace end: reed beds, wildfowl, and a much better chance of having a bit of the park to yourself. It's not part of either main summit route, so you need to detour or approach separately, but it rewards the trip if you want to see Salisbury Crags' cliff face from below, without needing the closed Radical Road to do it.